In such application, rolling bearings are used to angularly orient the rotor of the turbine according to the direction of the wind, and to orient the blades of the turbine around their longitudinal axes. Such rolling bearings are loaded mainly by stress, both axially and radially, often with a relatively strong load.
A rolling bearing for a wind turbine comprise two concentric inner and outer rings, at least a row of oblique contact rollers arranged between raceways and guiding faces provided on said rings, and a plurality of spacers disposed circumferentially between the rollers. Each spacer generally comprises two opposite cavities having a concave profile adapted to the rollers and delimited axially by lateral flanges, and two opposite inner and outer planar surfaces.
Friction is generated with such a spacer and the two associated rollers because of the high contact pressure under the action of the loads to which the rolling bearing is subjected during operation of the wind turbine.
It is a particular object of the present invention to provide a spacer for rolling bearing adapted to reduce its friction contribution and which is simple to manufacture and economic.